[Vote] (2-19) Proposal: Decrease Workshop Cost from 350 to 250 hammers

[Stalker0]

Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" if you'd be okay if this proposal was implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if this proposal wasn't implemented.

You can vote for both options, which is equivalent to saying "I'm fine either way", but adds to the required quorum of 10 votes in favor.

All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 2, Proposal 19
Proposal: Reduce the production cost of the workshop from 350 hammers to 250 hammers.

Rationale: The workshop is a simple example of paying hammers to make hammers, so we can very easily evaluate its worth. In a typical scenario, a city building a workship might have 8ish forests, and be in the 10-19 pop range. So for 350 hammers, we get +11 hammers. So it takes ~32 turns before the building pays for itself. That is a long time to recoup any benefit for a building.

Now we could increase the benefit, but as we are already discussing a concern of a production "glut" in the game, we don't want to stack on even more yields. So we have a simple alternative, just make the building cheaper. At 250 hammers, it will recoup in 23 turns, still a fair amount but much than what it does now.

 

[CppMaster]

I almost always invest anyway, so it's half that. Also, my main reason to build it is to build a factory, not production from it.

 

[CrazyG]

Rationale: The workshop is a simple example of paying hammers to make hammers, so we can very easily evaluate its worth. In a typical scenario, a city building a workship might have 8ish forests, and be in the 10-19 pop range. So for 350 hammers, we get +11 hammers. So it takes ~32 turns before the building pays for itself. That is a long time to recoup any benefit for a building.

Your typical city is working 8 forests?

 

[Stalker0]

Your typical city is working 8 forests?

well typical as I was trying to give a good example of a "decent workshop" city. Its fair that is more for a city with a good forest coverage.

 

[CrazyG]

well typical as I was trying to give a good example of a "decent workshop" city. Its fair that is more for a city with a good forest coverage.

What map script are you playing?

I was suggesting that 8 is too high, not too low. My typical city in pangea/continents is working 1, maybe 2? Even with furs or truffles by this stage 8 would be extremely high end for late medieval era. My cities often only have 8 pop total at this stage (especially if working a bunch of low food forests).

That isn't to oppose your proposal, workshops are really weak currently.

 

[Stalker0]

I was suggesting that 8 is too high, not too low.

I was agreeing with you. I used 8 to show that even with a pretty high number of forests, the workshop isn't that great. Its utter garbage if you only have a few forests litered about.

And I play on communitas_79, I have plenty of maps that get big forests. In my current game I have cities with 8,6, and 5 forests.

 

[pineappledan]

Should also make its scaler not utter garbage.

 

[BaldSamson]

I've mentioned in relation to reducing the cost of the Market thread (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/2-56-proposal-reduce-cost-of-market.680690/) that I'm not in favor of getting the costs/maintenance of the buildings out of their tiers. FYI: It's on the tier with Harbor, Custom's House, and Artists Guild.

I've attached the screenshot of the Workshop to make sure we are considering the full value of the building, as you did not mention the gold increase on forests or the increase in base value to internal trade routes.

Should also make its scaler not utter garbage.

I agree the scaler is garbage, and I'd suggest just dropping it.

I almost always invest anyway, so it's half that. Also, my main reason to build it is to build a factory, not production from it.

I agree with Cpp that players will typically be investing in this building, where it makes sense to build. If you aren't investing in buildings that give extra production, then ??? That makes the cost 175 hammers, so it would be built much faster then your calculation.

My suggestion is that we should make the workshop more niche. Remove the +2 base production and remove the scaler. Increase the forest production (1->2), and bump the internal trade route bonus (4->8). THEN... remove it as a prerequisite for the factory. Now, it's a powerful building for a few cities where it makes sense and we can avoid the "must build every building" mentality that takes away a lot of strategy from this game.

 

[AndreyK]

It will be big buff to forests and they are good enough now.

 

[rkkn]

delete scaler and lower cost sounds like a good change
(if the scaler weren't garbage then it'd be worth the 350)

 

[Voremonger]

Isn't the calculation in the OP wrong though? In that case you wouldn't just get +11 production but rather +11 production and +8 gold. The exact value of gold depends on how many underdeveloped cities you have but at the low end 1 gold is worth ~0.5 production. So after subtracting maintenance cost you end up with at least +14 production which pays off after ~25 turns. At a production cost of 250 it would pay off after ~18 turns.

In any case, I don't agree that ~30 turns is too long regarding when a building should start paying dividends in the first place since a game is going to take hundreds of turns. Universities cost 300 production and will give +6 science in most cities. If you assume that 1 science is worth 2 production that means they pay off after 25 turns (ignoring maintenance cost and specialist penalties). But I don't think anyone is going to argue that universities are too expensive.

 

[pineappledan]

I see we have unleashed some sort of flurry of cost reductions. Why not propose to make the building worth 350 rather than reduce its cost?

 

[Stalker0]

I see we have unleashed some sort of flurry of cost reductions. Why not propose to make the building worth 350 rather than reduce its cost?

You act like this is a bad thing. Cost reduction is just a tool of balance that we have not used often, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t. It’s a way to scalpel balance without messing with yield inflation.

The problem with making the workshop better, is now we have even more production in the game (at a time when new buildings are being considered because we are running out of things to build, meaning we have a production glut).

 

[CppMaster]

You act like this is a bad thing. Cost reduction is just a tool of balance that we have not used often, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t. It’s a way to scalpel balance without messing with yield inflation.

The problem with making the workshop better, is now we have even more production in the game (at a time when new buildings are being considered because we are running out of things to build).

I agree. It could be way easier to just reduce cost.

 

[ma_kuh]

I think picking and choosing off-cost buildings is a slippery slope. We already see it with Herbalist/Market. I'm not against using it as a tool, but I think we should take a little more time to evaluate what it means for the game. Not just "is this building worth the full price?" but also what is the role of a full cost versus a reduced-cost building?

Some examples:
Some buildings could be framed as unlocking a tech column later than their role; these make sense to reduce.
Some buildings are only meant to be used to scale or focus a city's goals (garden, e.g.); should these be more expensive or less expensive than other buildings on this tier?
Some buildings are required for future buildings, making them more central to every city's building plan; should these be more expensive or less?

Before we have a larger discussion on the role of cost modifications, I'm somewhat against trying to pick out individual buildings for cost modification.

 

[Stalker0]

Before we have a larger discussion on the role of cost modifications, I'm somewhat against trying to pick out individual buildings for cost modification.

I think that's a bit of an extreme reaction, considering that our more traditional balances tools such as "adjusting the yield generation of a building" has a far greater impact to the overall flow of the game than a single adjustment to the cost of a building.

The role of cost modification to me is quite simple: you have something that needs a small adjustment to balance, and you don't want to disturb the general flow of yields to the game to accomplish that adjustment.

 

[pineappledan]

If it’s a scalpel fix, then it’s a scalpel in the eye while you’re trying to fix a cleft pallet. The workshop offers less production than any other production building; it is more reliant on the map than the forge is for more cost, and less benefit. It is just not a good building, and making it cheaper is a palliative at best.

I suggest we move the engineer bonus to the workshop and fix 3 problems at once: the outrageous overtuning of early engineers, the overvaluation of forges, and the undervaluation of workshops.

 

[Voremonger]

I suggest we move the engineer bonus to the workshop

I had that thought too. Also maybe change the +2 production bonus that forge grants to mines to +1 production and +1 gold but I haven't really thought this through.

 

[Stalker0]

I suggest we move the engineer bonus to the workshop and fix 3 problems at once: the outrageous overturning of early engineers, the overvaluation of forges, and the undervaluation of workshops.

This is also a reasonable suggestion, as I do agree that engineers got overtuned in the last version. Forges really did not need that extra benefit, nor did engineers.

Also to state my position clearly, I do not think cost adjustment is a panacea for all balance problems, and if its not the right tool for the job in this case, so be it. However, what I balk out is the notion that cost adjustment is not a good balancing tool in general, its a very solid one that has been ignored for far too long, and it should be a reasonable consideration for any building balance discussion.

 

[CppMaster]

If it’s a scalpel fix, then it’s a scalpel in the eye while you’re trying to fix a cleft pallet. The workshop offers less production than any other production building; it is more reliant on the map than the forge is for more cost, and less benefit. It is just not a good building, and making it cheaper is a palliative at best.

I suggest we move the engineer bonus to the workshop and fix 3 problems at once: the outrageous overtuning of early engineers, the overvaluation of forges, and the undervaluation of workshops.

Ok, so this could be a counterproposal.